


New Memories

by KestrelShrike



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hospital, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Photos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:11:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11116755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelShrike/pseuds/KestrelShrike
Summary: Written for day two of Mass Effect relationships week by @cactuarkitty and @vorchagirl, based around the idea of photographs making memories. Because I'm me, I couldn't resist yet more glimpses of their future.





	New Memories

“We got a body here- holy shit, it’s alive.” Shepard comes to awareness, but it’s dim, muted. Her eyes can’t open, everything feels so heavy- where was she? What happened? The Reapers, Anderson, everything…

“That’s Shepard. Call a med-evac, immediately.”

Drifting in and out- voices, pain, then nothing. Blackness.

“Remove her armor. We need to do a full examination, assess the damage. What’s that?” 

“Look like a photo, tucked under the breastplate. Do we trash it?”

“Negative. Keep personal belongings here.” She reaches for the photo, hand rising slightly, but someone pushes it back down. Her fingers open and close, but the effort exhausts her. Nothingness creeps up once again- she’s out, a relief from the pain that intrudes every time her mind struggles to something even resembling alert.

Half a galaxy away, Garrus pulled a photo out from his own armor, holding it up to the light. The world captured on a sheet of glossy paper (a pain in the ass to get that much- he almost smiled at the memory of trying to explain to someone on the Citadel that they needed an actual, physical photo, not a holo, not a simple jpeg.) He stood with Shepard in that little, self-contained world. She had on that dress- the only one she owned, the one she wore to the Silversun stirp when he took her dancing. He wasn’t in armor, one of the few times he wasn’t. Their faces were pressed together, both trying to squeeze into a limited frame, smiles so wide that they looked slightly unhinged. He remembers everything about that moment- the way they both smelled faintly of champagne, the feel of her waist underneath his hand, the way she turned and kissed his cheek for the next photo, the one he keeps back aboard the ship. Some things are too precious even to hold in his armor.

“You would’ve liked this place,” he says to the photo, looking at the forest that surrounds them. Breathable atmosphere. Flowers, trees. It almost looked like something recognizable. “Check out that pond.” He turns the photo so that it faces the water far below. The wind picks up, almost tears the fragile sheet from his hand and he quickly tucks it back into his armor, making sure it’s resting somewhere close to where his heart is. He keeps his hand there for a moment.

His comms crackle to life, static from far off. The Mass Relays may be down, but you can still talk with the rest of the galaxy. “Normandy crew, this is Earth Alliance, do you copy?” No one answers, so Garrus takes the initiative.

“This is Garrus Vakarian of the Normandy.”

“Shepard’s alive.” 

And later, much later, when he’s by her bedside and she’s awake, though she drifts in and out, they hold hands, refusing to let go. Even when she’s asleep, Shepard’s grip doesn’t loosen, and Garrus can’t bring himself to care, sleeping in a chair next to her bed, and when the nurses aren’t looking, in the bed next to her, his turian body curled up slightly to fit.

There’s a photo by the side of Shepard’s bed, on the small table. Someone found a frame for it, plastic and cheap. It’s wrinkled from being in her armor, and her own blood stains one corner. Garrus holds his up in comparison- they folded their copies the same way, the same photo twice over, four grinning faces looking up at them.

“You kept yours?” Shepard is tired, but she’s managed to prop herself up on one elbow, looking at Garrus, reaching for her photo and then holding it, fingers tracing the faces. 

“In my armor,” he says, demonstrates how. She smiles up at him, collapsing back into the pillows.

“Let’s take a new one, when I get out of here.” Reflexively, her hands touch the new scars and bandages on her face. 

“Silversun won’t be there anymore.” It’s not that Garrus wants to remind her, but he’s worried she’s forgotten. Everything is still so fragile.

Shepard manages to roll her eyes, an admirable feat considering how bruised and battered her body is. “I know that, but Vegas is still there. I’m taking you to Vegas, and you’re taking me dancing again.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

And then later, much later, before Shepard is released but after she’s awake and coherent and more than ready to leave, Garrus finds a camera, ambushes her with it in the hospital as she stands by a window, shafts of light hitting her red hair and outlining her body in a soft glow, IV pole just out of frame. “Surprise,” he says as he pushes up against her, and despite herself, she laughs, looking up at him just as he snaps the photo.

Later again, when she’s home and with him, he has two copies. “New memories,” he says, raising a glass (water for both of them) to her.

“New memories,” she says, and they toast.


End file.
